In recent years, the use of white boards and therefore the use of dry erase markers required for their use have become more popular every day. Many of the markers are designed to be used on relatively non porous surfaces, such as Mylar, plastic film, porcelain, or surfaces similar to that of the porcelain and of other similar surfaces. A common term for these boards and walls with this type of surface is “white board”. To write on this white board, various types of markers are used. Typically, the markers for white boards have a special formula that substantially impedes the ink from permanently adhering to the non porous surface being written on. This ink dries on the surface of the white board leaving a thin film. Previously, in order to erase the dry ink of the marker, the materials used in the erasers have been similar to those that were used in the erasers for chalk boards. The dry ink is erased relatively easily with a variety of materials and devices but the most common is to use an eraser with bristles made of many different materials such as felt, cloth or including being able to be erased with the hand of the user.
Traditionally, one of the main problems with the known markers is that the eraser is a piece that is separate from the markers and which results in that the eraser is frequently very hard to find because someone had removed it or that it was misplaced in an inadequate place. In this way, the eraser is not always available to the user to erase the writing surface. In a similar way, the markers can be removed or easily placed in different place within the work zone close to the board, provoking that the users has to move from one side to the other in order to reach desired marker in said moment, especially in order to use many combinations of colors, which is one of the more useful characteristics of the white board.
To solve the problem of the removal and misplacement of the markers and the eraser, many alternatives have been proposed. Such as the U.S. Pat. No. 3,110,917 (McPeek Jr., 1963), which describes an eraser in the form of a prismatic bar with one face containing the erasing element, and the opposite face offering holes designed to hold 3 sticks of chalk, which are maintained in place by a sliding lid that covers them when access is not required; the eraser also includes a magnet that allows for the attachment to a metallic support fixed to the wall.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,973 (Wagner et al, 1995) describes a device a little more practical and appropriate for the instruments used with white boards. It is made up of a system of erasing especially adapted for white boards, that has a first means of erasing, such as a pile of cloths, and as a second means of erasing hard to remove marks, such as Velcro, the eraser also includes a sleeve designed to hold up to three markers.
This sleeve has projections with corners in right angles that form three slots along the length of the eraser where a marker can be placed in one of the slots; it seems that the removal of one of the markers only can be done by taking the ends and placing outward pressure on the slot. The design seems to be uncomfortable for the user, especially because of the presence of the sharp corners, and because there is only one line of support for the sleeve, it seems fragile, requiring the material used in its fabrication to be sufficiently flexible which at the same time produces only a little strength in the eraser.
The design proposed by Krapf (U.S. Pat. No. D398,644, 1998) partially resolves the problem of the sharps corners as was in Wagner's design, and it also allows for the lodging of writing instruments of diverse dimensions, such as markers and skinny markers. Nonetheless, the design still presents the problems of stability associated with only one line of attachment between the body of the eraser and the sleeve of the marker case.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,305,864 (Nguyen, 2001), not directed at a conjunction of an eraser and markers, offers an interesting solution to the problem of the finding the writing instruments. Upon providing a system based on a suction cup configuration to be pressed against a flat surface, the cup includes a localized connector on the exterior of the convex surface and said connector is joined with a hole especially designed in the base of the writing instrument in a way so that said instrument can be placed on any flat surface with the help of the suction cup. This alternative is fairly practical when it is compared with the differences it has to McPeek's device, such that it doesn't need a metal support fixed to a wall to be able to find the article in question, nonetheless it does have the limitation of not being able to hold more than one article at a time.
Unlike Nguyen's device, Hawkins, U.S. Pat. No. 7,309,181, proposes an eraser for the white board that has an upper region and a lower region, a layer of eraser material that has an upper section and a lower section, where the upper section is fixed to the lower region of the body of the eraser, and the eraser has at least one hole in the upper region to accommodate at least one unit of writing utensils, and a magnetic element connected in a functional way to the body of the eraser between the upper section of the layer of eraser material and the upper region of the body of the eraser. Nonetheless, even when Hawkins's article can hold more than one writing utensil and has the possibilities to be attached to a magnetic surface, like the majority of the boards, the design is such that when the writing utensils are found to be in their positions over the body of the eraser, they disturb the user.